Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

Salutations to that heart centered and great Lakshmi. May you pour forth your blessings upon me.

Shreem is the seedsound for the principle of abundance of which the deity Lakshmi is the personification. Mahameans great and this means not only in quantity but also in quality. Abundance - that is in harmony with the divine law. Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth and prosperity – both spiritual and material. Invoking hert hrough her name can bring tremendous creative energy.

In a Chinese text known as the Sutra of 42 Sections, there’s the following passage:10. The Buddha said, “Those who rejoice in seeing others observe the Waywill obtain great blessing.” A Sramana asked the Buddha, “Would thisblessing be destroyed?” The Buddha replied, “It is like a lighted torchwhose flame can be distributed to ever so many other torches whichpeople may bring along; and therewith they will cook food and dispeldarkness, while the original torch itself remains burning ever the same.It is even so with the bliss of the Way.”The exact wording, “Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the single candle will not be shortened, comes from a Japanese book on Buddhism called “The Teaching of Buddha.” This book does contain translations of Buddhist sutras, but it also inlcludes a lot of explanatory commentary, of which this is a part.

A fuller version reads:“An act to make another happy, inspires the other to make still another happy, and so happiness is aroused and abounds. Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the single candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. Those who seek Enlightenment must be careful of each of their steps. No matter how high one’s aspiration may be, it must be attained step by step. The steps of the path to Enlightenment must be taken in our everyday life.”This seems to be, in part, a paraphrase of Section 10 of the Sutra. It’s not an exact translation, but it’s pretty close. It certainly seems to preserve the meaning and the image, even if the exact wording has been tweaked.Even though the paragraph from “The Teaching of Buddha” is commentarial rather than a scriptural passage, the quote “Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the single candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared,” is, I believe, close enough to the Sutra of 42 Sections to be considered genuine.Several well-known Fake Buddha Quotes originate in this book. The problem may be that quotes appear with the attribution “The Teaching of Buddha,” with this then being misinterpreted to mean that they are the “word of the Buddha.”The Sutra of 42 Sections is said to be a compilation from Indian sources. According to legend, the Emperor Ming sent a delegation west looking for the Buddha’s teachings. The delegation encountered Kasyapa-Matanga and Dharmaraksha in India, and they were brought back to China along with many sutras. The Sutra of 42 Sections was one of the works they translated.I’m not aware of any text in Pali (or Sanskrit) that corresponds to Section 10. That doesn’t mean that an original doesn’t exist, of course, just that more research is needed.The Buddha did talk about lamps (I don’t know about candles) and said things like:“Just as an oil lamp burns in dependence on oil & wick; and from the termination of the oil & wick — and from not being provided any other sustenance — it goes out unnourished; in the same way, when sensing a feeling limited to the body, he discerns that ‘I am sensing a feeling limited to the body.’ When sensing a feeling limited to life, he discerns that ‘I am sensing a feeling limited to life.’ He discerns that ‘With the break-up of the body, after the termination of life, all that is sensed, not being relished, will grow cold right here.’”As you can see, this isn’t very pithy or quotable!A bit more quotable is:As a flame overthrown by the force of the wind goes to an end that cannot be classified, so the sage free from naming activity goes to an end that cannot be classified.But then this is rather hard to comprehend.A later teaching — the Questions of King Milinda, has a similar analogy in reference not to happiness but to the teaching of rebirth:The king asked: “Venerable Nagasena, is it so that one does not transmigrate and [yet] one is reborn?”“Yes, your majesty, one does not transmigrate and one is reborn.”“How, venerable Nagasena, is it that one does not transmigrate and one is reborn? Give me an analogy.”“Just as, your majesty, if someone kindled one lamp from another, is it indeed so, your majesty, that the lamp would transmigrate from the other lamp?”“Certainly not, venerable sir.”“Indeed just so, your majesty, one does not transmigrate and one is reborn.”This isn’t the Buddha speaking, but it’s the closest I’ve found outside of the Sutra of 42 Sections to “Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the single candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”

So ... did Buddha said it ? Don´t know, there might be more sutras in other schools that might confirm this. But if this teaching ressonates with your heart, if it works to bring you more joy in the life, if it helps you to see beyond, take it as buddha tooth and reach the ultimate goal.